Nigeria And The Upsurge In Ultimatum To National Unity, By Bala Ibrahim

AS a country, Nigeria is gradually tilting towards a nation whose unity is being threatened like never before. Almost on daily basis now, new narratives are emerging, with people championing one sectional sentiment or another. And the momentum is growing, and growing with serious speed. Sometimes last month, while President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was on leave in the United Kingdom, a Yoruba Nation advocate, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, submitted a petition to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, calling on the UK, the former colonial master of Nigeria, to consider a secession that would lead to the creation of a Yoruba Nation from Nigeria.

Long before now, there have calls by some indigenous Yoruba in Nigeria, for the establishment of the Oduduwa Republic. Although there are sharp divisions over the appropriateness of the agitation for such Republic, the promoters of the self-determination agenda, are insisting that, the time has arrived for the ethnic group to have an autonomous country.

In recent months, signals are emerging, to the effect that, the tranquillity in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria may come under threat. This is pursuant to the increasing outbursts of a militant leader, Asari Dokubo, who is accusing President Bola Tinubu of betraying him, after the 2023 elections in the country. As a consequence, Dokubo has gone public, through a viral video that is now trending on the social media, saying his region is warming up for a new alignment that would work against the Yoruba interest. Dokubo’s anger is not for the establishment of a Niger Delta country, but an agitation against an alleged agenda, which he said is working in conflict with the interest of his people.

According to the former warlord, he and his people would not work with the Yoruba people again, rather, they would now form new alliances with the north, in a manner that would make the Yoruba or the south west politically insignificant.

“From today, I will work and form an alliance with the North. President Tinubu betrayed me after I spent all my money and emptied my bank account campaigning for him. The Tinubu I know now isn’t the Tinubu I used to know. We will take this message across that only the Northerners can work with the Ijaw people”-Dokubo.

In another development with similar emotion, but the semblance of soft-heartedness, a new political group has emerged in northern Nigeria, called, the League of Northern Democrats. The league, under the leadership of the former Governor of Kano state and former Minister, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, said it’s on a mission to addressing the pressing issues of insecurity, educational decline, and economic stagnation in the North. Mallam Shekarau said their league underscored the importance of fostering unity to facilitate a credible leadership recruitment process, making the North a significant political bloc in Nigeria.

Although, unlike those calling directly for the balkanization of the country, the mission of the League of Northern Democrats is that of cohesion, but they want to see stronger strength given to the north, which is adjudged to be bigger in terms of landmass and population.

All these are coming at a time when something is trending on the social media, claiming that a draft bill has been sent to the National Assembly, by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, seeking to return the country to a regional government. The alleged draft bill reads, “A Bill for an Act to Substitute the Annexure to Decree 24 of 1999 with a New Governance Model for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Like the other agitations, it is also alleged that this bill is dividing the members of the National Assembly on regional lines-Southern and Northern Senators.

While the country is experiencing the upsurge in the calls for restructuring or balkanization, even with ultimatums on national unity, elders, particularly elder statesmen like former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, are asking the agitators to tread with caution. Obasanjo was unequivocal when the league of northern democrats visited him in his country home of Otta:

“It is high time we began working for the national interest,” Where I was born should not be the enemy of my being a Nigerian. It will be great to be a Nigerian than to be a member of the republic of Oodua. I am undoubtedly proud to be a Yoruba, but my being a Nigerian should not be the enemy of my being a Yoruba. We must get the best man for the job. It doesn’t matter where he comes from. We must get our acts together.”

There is an African proverb that says, “the youth can walk faster, but the elder knows the way”. To neglect our elders is to neglect our future, because, the words of elders are indeed the words of wisdom.

People, including yours truly, sometimes disagree with Obasanjo, but there are areas we are all compulsorily compelled to agree with him. And that’s when the matter has something to do with national unity. We can call Obasanjo anything, but he is not, and is most likely not, going to be a ‘dis-uniter’.